Archive for the ‘Hong Kong’ Category

While adults geek out on the latest from Scorsese and Polanski at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, the kids get their very own Generations sidebar. With films ranging from hard-hitting documentaries like Neukölln Unlimited to the sci-fi romance of SUMMER WARS, it’s a menu that caters to a very varied group of tastes. Some things remain constant, though, like bullying, pain-in-the-neck siblings, road trips and parents who just don’t seem to understand. Click on the titles to watch trailers.

Emma (Naissance des pieuvres’s Louise Blachere) escapes from the pressures of teenage life by creating a fantasy world. It’s populated by her overbearing mother and the swooning heroine Sister Welsh, who yearns to escape her convent school for the hunky arms of Capt. Grant. Emma happily lives in her imaginative universe until a boy takes an interest. Directed by Jean-Claude Janer.

A Lebanese family of hip-hop dancers living in Berlin’s Neukölln district is threatened with deportation. Lial and Hassan Akkouch raise money so their brother Maradona can stay in the country, but the youngster falls in with a bad crowd. Agostino Imondi and Dietmar Ratsch’s documentary is like Save the Last Dance if it were real. And good.

According to the program notes, Berlin’s Panorama section is meant to present “an overview of trends in art-house world cinema.” That’s shorthand for “this is where we put stuff we like, but which is unlikely to attract the attention of a Competition film.” The films found in the Main and Special programs highlight international and independent productions in need of wider distribution. This year’s batch includes India’s first legally gay film, a Brazilian action film and Kevin Spacey moving in with his daughter. Read to the end, because there’s a trick in this line-up’s tail. Click on the titles to see trailers.

A gay director and his bisexual cameraman learn that it’s hard to make a documentary in Calcutta. Star Rituparno Ghosh is better known as a director, having won the National Film Award for Unishe April. According to director Kaushik Ganguly, this is the first gay picture to be shot in India after the decriminalization of homosexuality.

A straight fitness trainer named Kafka and a gay businessman have a fraught affair. This is the second film in a stylish autobiographical trilogy by Hong Kong IT-whiz-turned-filmmaker Scud (Permanent Residence), which also starred model Byron Pang.

“Another difficulty stems from the director’s high standard. He demands the same from a cow as he does a good actor. So we sometimes had to do more than 100 takes for a single shot. I was so close to breakdown that I wanted to beat somebody up. But what could you do in front of a cow?”

In 1969 Hong Kong, a shoemaker’s family experiences tragedy and triumph. Veteran filmmaker Alex Law drew on memories of his own upbringing for this emotional drama. Not a good idea to watch this if you’re allergic to the sound of a pennywhistle.

Hong Kong-based filmmaker Scud turned a few heads–including this blog’s–with his 2007 feature Permanent Residence, which related his gay lifestyle in exquisitely art-directed terms. The second film in his trilogy tells of a straight fitness trainer’s relationship with a gay executive. As always, the trailer is a treat to look at, although we don’t know how some of the overt poetic imagery will play on screen. With screwing of both sexes going on, the viewer should be warned this quite sexy trailer is also NFSW.

The course of gay love never did run smooth … especially if it’s in Hong Kong. Scud’s autobiographical feature has drawn attention for its graphic nudity …some of which is on display in this NSFW trailer. The Chinese version of Savage Garden’s “Truly Madly Deeply” also hurts a little.